I'm the paediatric placement development facilitator within the Trust. I didn't think I wanted to work in a children's hospital but there was an open day advertised in Evelina London Children's Hospital and, I thought, well I might as well go for it. I walked into the hospital and completely fell in love with it and knew I wanted to work here. I've been here for nine years now in a few different roles and it was just the atmosphere, everything about it just made me think yep, this is a good place this is where I want to work.
I was a ward sister on Mountain Ward prior to doing this role and then I was sitting in an update and I heard about this current job and I thought that is for me, that is what I want, and have now been in the role for nearly five years.
Evelina London Children's Hospital is unique because children helped to design it. They wanted things like rocket lifts, they didn't want it to feel like a hospital basically. Children were very much of the focus of the hospital when it was built and that is still the focus now.
The clinical education team where I work is quite a small team. We're a team of mainly nurses and a midwife helping to support the student nurses and midwives in the Trust.
It's really lovely to be able to see them grow and develop and some students that I've worked with in the past, I now see them as clinical nurse specialists, as ward sisters, so I've been able to see that real progression with them.
I think the support that is offered is really fabulous. I think people very much want to make you reach your potential and work out how they can do that. There are the different perks working at Guy's and St Thomas'. We've got our own Thomas Guy Club on-site as well where there's a gym, swimming pool, and a bar, so we don't even have to go far to then be able to meet with our colleagues and just have a laugh as well as having worked hard together too.
My advice would be to get rid of any of the presumptions or assumptions that you have and just come in, see it fresh and hopefully be wowed like I was when I walked in too.
This has been my journey at Evelina London, part of Guy's and St Thomas'. When will your journey begin?